Friday, 30 November 2012

Technocracy is a form of government in which experts in technology would be in control of all decision making. Scientists, engineers, and technologists who have knowledge, expertise, or skills, would compose the governing body, instead of politicians, businessmen, and economists.[1] In a technocracy, decision makers would be selected based upon how knowledgeable and skillful they are in their field.
The term technocracy was originally used to designate the application of the scientific method to solving social problems, in counter distinction to the traditional economic, political, or philosophic approaches. According to the proponents of this concept, the role of money and economic values, political opinions, and moralistic control mechanisms would be eliminated altogether if and when this form of social control should ever be implemented in a continental area endowed with enough natural resources, technically trained personnel, and installed industrial equipment. In such an arrangement, concern would be given to sustainability within the resource base, instead of monetary profitability, so as to ensure continued operation of all social-industrial functions into the indefinite future. Technical and leadership skills would be selected on the basis of specialized knowledge and performance, rather than democratic election by those without such knowledge or skill deemed necessary.[2]
Some uses of the word technocracy refer to a form of meritocracy, a system where the "most qualified" and those who decide the validity of qualifications are the same people. Other applications have been described as not being an oligarchic human group of controllers, but rather administration by discipline-specific science, ostensibly without the influence of special interest groups.[3] The word technocracy has also been used to indicate any kind of management or administration by specialized experts ('technocrats') in any field, not just physical science, and the adjective 'technocratic' has been used to describe governments that include non-elected professionals at a ministerial level.[4][5]

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The term technocracy derives from the Greek words τέχνη, tekhne meaning skill and κράτος, kratos meaning power, as in government, or rule. William Henry Smyth, a Californian engineer, is usually credited with inventing the word "technocracy" in 1919 to describe "the rule of the people made effective through the agency of their servants, the scientists and engineers", although the word had been used before on several occasions.[3][6][7][8] Smyth used the term "Technocracy" in his 1919 article "'Technocracy'—Ways and Means to Gain Industrial Democracy," in the journal Industrial Management (57).[9] Smyth's usage referred to Industrial democracy: a movement to integrate workers into decision making through existing firms or revolution.[9] In the 1930s, through the influence of Howard Scott and the Technocracy movement that he founded, the term technocracy came to mean government by technical decision making.[9]

Before the term technocracy was coined, technocratic or quasi-technocratic ideas involving governance by technical experts were promoted by various individuals, most notably early socialist theorists such as Henri de Saint-Simon. This was expressed by the belief in state ownership over the economy, with the function of the state being transformed from one of political rule over men into a scientific administration of things and a direction of processes of production under scientific management.[10]Alexander Bogdanov, a Russian scientist and social theorist, also anticipated a conception of technocratic process. Both Bogdanov’s fiction and his political writings, which were highly influential, suggest that he expected a coming revolution against capitalism to lead to a technocratic society.[11]

Technocrats are individuals with technical training and occupations who perceive many important societal problems as being solvable, often while proposing technology-focused solutions. The administrative scientist Gunnar K. A. Njalsson theorizes that technocrats are primarily driven by their cognitive "problem-solution mindsets" and only in part by particular occupational group interests. Their activities and the increasing success of their ideas are thought to be a crucial factor behind the modern spread of technology and the largely ideological concept of the "information society". Technocrats may be distinguished from "econocrats" and "bureaucrats" whose problem-solution mindsets differ from those of the technocrats.[12]
The former government of the Soviet Union has been referred to as a technocracy.[13] Soviet leaders like Leonid Brezhnev had a technical background in education, and in 1986, 89% of Politburo members were engineers.[14]
Several governments in European parliamentary democracies have been labeled 'technocratic' based on the participation of unelected experts ('technocrats') in prominent positions.[4] Since the 1990s, Italy has had several such governments (in Italian, governo tecnico) in times of economic or political crisis,[15][16] including the current formation in which economist Mario Monti presides over a cabinet of unelected professionals.[17][18] The term 'technocratic' has been applied to governments where a cabinet of elected professional politicians is led by an unelected prime minister, such as in the cases of the current Greek government led by economist, Lucas Papademos, and the Czech Republic's 2009–2010 caretaker government presided over by the state's chief statistician, Jan Fischer.[5][19]

Following Samuel Haber,[20] Donald Stabile argues that engineers were faced with a conflict between physical efficiency and cost efficiency in the new corporate capitalist enterprises of the late nineteenth century United States. The profit-conscious, non-technical managers of firms where the engineers work, because of their perceptions of market demand, often impose limits on the projects that engineers desire to undertake.
The prices of all inputs vary with market forces thereby upsetting the engineer's careful calculations. As a result, the engineer loses control over projects and must continually revise plans. To keep control over projects the engineer must attempt to exert control over these outside variables and transform them into constant factors.[21]
Leaders of the Communist Party of China are mostly professional engineers. The Five-year plans of the People's Republic of China have enabled them to plan ahead in a technocratic fashion to build projects such as the National Trunk Highway System, the China high-speed rail system, and the Three Gorges Dam. [22]

The American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen was an early advocate of Technocracy, and was involved in the Technical Alliance as was Howard Scott and M. King Hubbert (who later developed the theory of peak oil). Veblen believed that technological developments would eventually lead toward a socialistic organization of economic affairs. Veblen saw socialism as one intermediate phase in an ongoing evolutionary process in society that would be brought about by the natural decay of the business enterprise system and by the inventiveness of engineers.[23]Daniel Bell sees an affinity between Veblen and the Technocracy movement.[24]
In 1932, Howard Scott and Marion King Hubbert founded Technocracy Incorporated, and proposed that money be replaced by energy certificates denominated in units such as ergs or joules, equivalent in amount to an appropriate national energy budget, which could be divided equally among all members of a North American continental technate. The group argued that apolitical, rational engineers should be vested with authority to guide an economy into a thermodynamically balanced load of production and consumption, thereby doing away with unemployment and debt.[25]
The Technocracy movement was highly popular in the USA for a brief period in the early 1930s, during the Great Depression. By the mid-1930s, interest in the movement was declining. Some historians have attributed the decline of the technocracy movement to the rise of Roosevelt's New Deal.[26][27]
Many books have discussed the Technocracy movement.[28] One of these is Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900–1941 by William E. Akin.[29]

^The life of Thorstein Veblen and perspectives on his thought, Wood, John (1993). The life of Thorstein Veblen and perspectives on his thought. introd. Thorstein Veblen. New York: Routledge. ISBN0-415-07487-8. ""The decisive difference between Marx and Veblen lay in their respective attitudes on socialism. For while Marx regarded socialism as the ultimate goal for civilization, Veblen saw socialism as but one stage in the economic evolution of society.""

Islamic economics refers to the body of Islamic studies literature that "identifies and promotes an economic order that conforms to Islamic scripture and traditions," and in the economic world an interest-free Islamic banking system, grounded in Sharia's condemnation of interest (riba). The literature has been developed "since the late 1940s, and especially since the mid-1960s."[1] The banking system developed during the 1970s.[2] The central features of Islamic economic literature have been summarized as the following: "behavioral norms" derived from the Quran and Sunna, zakat tax as the basis of Islamic fiscal policy, and prohibition of interest.[1]
In Shia Islam, scholars including Mahmoud Taleghani and Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr developed an "Islamic economics" emphasizing the uplifting of the deprived masses, a major role for the state in matters such as circulation and equitable distribution of wealth, and a reward to participants in the marketplace for being exposed to risk and/or liability.
Islamist movements and authors generally describe an Islamic economic system as neither socialist nor capitalist, but as a "third way" with none of the drawbacks of the other two systems.[3][4]

zakat—the "taxing of certain goods, such as harvest, with an eye to allocating these taxes to expenditures that are also explicitly defined, such as aid to the needy."

gharar—"the interdiction of chance ... that is, of the presence of any element of uncertainty, in a contract (which excludes not only insurance but also the lending of money without participation in the risks)."

riba—"referred to as usury (modern Islamic economists reached consensus that Riba is any kind of interest, rather than usury)"[5]

These concepts, like others in Islamic law, came from the "prescriptions, anecdotes, examples, and words of Muhammad, gathered and systematized by commentators according to an inductive, casuistic method."[5] Sometimes other sources such as al-urf (custom), al-aql (reason), or al-ijma (consensus of the jurists) were employed.[6]
In addition, Islamic law has developed areas of law that correspond to secular laws of contracts and torts.

Some[who?] argued that early Islamic theory and practice formed a "coherent" economic system with "a blueprint for a new order in society, in which all participants would be treated more fairly"[page needed]. Michael Bonner, for example, wrote that an "economy of poverty" prevailed in Islam until the 13th and 14th century. Under this system God's guidance made sure the flow of money and goods was "purified" by being channeled from those who had much of it to those who had little by encouraging zakat and discouraging riba (usury/interest) on loans. Bonner maintained that Muhammad helped poor traders by allowing only tents (not permanent buildings) in the market of Medina, and by not charging fees and rents there.[7]

To some degree, the early Muslims based their economic analyses on the Qur'an (such as opposition to riba, meaning usury/interest), and from sunnah, the sayings and doings of Muhammad.
Among the important early Muslim scholars who made valuable contributions to economic theory are Abu Yusuf (d. 798), Al-Mawardi (d. 1058), Ibn Hazm (d. 1064), Al-Sarakhsi (d. 1090), Al-Tusi (d. 1093), Al-Ghazali (d. 1111), Al-Dimashqi (d. after 1175), Ibn Rushd (d. 1187), Ibn Taymiyyah (d.1328), Ibn al-Ukhuwwah (d. 1329), Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 1350), Al-Shatibi (d. 1388), Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), Al-Maqrizi (d. 1442), Al-Dawwani (d. 1501), and Shah Waliyullah (d. 1762).[8]
Perhaps the most well–known Islamic scholar who wrote about economics was Ibn Khaldun,[9] who is considered a father of modern economics.[10][11] Ibn Khaldun wrote on economic and political theory in the introduction, or Muqaddimah (Prolegomena), of his History of the World (Kitab al-Ibar). He discussed what he called asabiyya (social cohesion), which he cited as the cause of some civilizations becoming great and others not. Ibn Khaldun felt that many social forces are cyclic, although there could be sudden sharp turns that break the pattern.[12]
His idea about the benefits of the division of labor also relate to asabiyya, the greater the social cohesion, the more complex the successful division may be, the greater the economic growth. He noted that growth and development positively stimulates both supply and demand, and that the forces of supply and demand are what determines the prices of goods.[13] He also noted macroeconomic forces of population growth, human capital development, and technological developments effects on development.[14] In fact, Ibn Khaldun thought that population growth was directly a function of wealth.[15]

During the modern post-colonial era, as Western ideas (including Western economics) began to influence the Muslim world, some Muslim writers sought to produce an Islamic economics discipline. Islamic scholars who considered Islam to be a complete system of life in all its aspects, rather than a spiritual formula[29] believed that it logically followed that Islam defined economic life, unique from and superior to non-Islamic systems.[7] To date, however, there has been no consensus as to its definition and scope.
In the 1960s and 1970s Shi'a thinkers worked to describe Islamic economics' "own answers to contemporary economic problems." Several works were particularly influential:

Eslam va Malekiyyat (Islam and Property) by Mahmud Taleqani (1951),

Nidham ul-Iqtisad fil Islam (The Economic System of Islam) by Taqiuddin Nabhani (1953),

Some Interpretations of Property Rights, Capital and Labor from Islamic Perspective by Habibullah Peyman (1979).[30][31]

Al-Sadr in particular was described as having "almost single-handedly developed the notion of Islamic economics"[32]
In their writings Sadr and the other authors "sought to depict Islam as a religion committed to social justice, the equitable distribution of wealth, and the cause of the deprived classes," with doctrines "acceptable to Islamic jurists," while refuting existing non-Islamic theories of capitalism and Marxism. This version of Islamic economics, which influenced the Iranian Revolution, called for public ownership of land and of large "industrial enterprises," while private economic activity continued "within reasonable limits."[33] These ideas informed the large public sector and public subsidy policies of the Iranian Revolution.
In the 1980s and 1990s, as the Islamic revolution failed to reach the per capita income level achieved by the regime it overthrew, and Communist states and socialist parties in the non-Muslim world turned away from socialism, Muslim interest shifted away from government ownership and regulation. In Iran, "eqtesad-e Eslami (meaning both Islamic economics and economy) ... once a revolutionary shibboleth, is indubitably absent in all official documents and the media. It disapperared from Iranian political discourse about 15 years ago [1990]."[31]
But in other parts of the Muslim world the term lived on, shifting form to the less ambitious goal of interest-free banking. Some Muslim bankers and religious leaders suggested ways to integrate Islamic law on usage of money with modern concepts of ethical investing. In banking this was done through the use of sales transactions (focusing on the fixed rate return modes) to support investing without interest-bearing debt. Many modern writers have strongly criticized this approach as a means of covering conventional banking with an Islamic facade.[citation needed]

While many Muslims believe Islamic law is perfect by virtue of its being revealed by God, Islamic law on economic issues was/is not "economics" in the sense of a systematic study of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. An example of the traditionalist ulama approach to economic issues is Imam Khomeini's work Tawzih al-masa'il where the term "economy" does not appear and where the chapter on selling and buying (Kharid o forush) comes after the one on pilgrimage. As Olivier Roy put it, the work "presents economic questions as individual acts open to moral analysis: `To lend [without interest, on a note from the lender] is among the good works that are particularly recommended in the verses of the Quran and the in the Traditions.`"[34]

The Qur'an states that God is the sole owner of all matter in the heavens and the earth.[35] Man, however, is God's viceregent on earth and holds God's possessions in trust (amanat). Islamic jurists divide properties into public, state, private categories.[36]

Public property in Islam refers to natural resources (forests, pastures, uncultivated land, water, mines, oceanic resources etc.) to which all humans have equal right. Such resources are considered the common property of the community. Such property is placed under the guardianship and control of the Islamic state, and can be used by any citizen, as long as that use does not undermine the rights of other citizens.[36]
Some types of public property can not be privatized under Islamic law. Muhammad's saying that "people are partners in three things: water, fire and pastures", led some scholars to believe that the privatization of water, energy and agricultural land is not permissible. Muhammad allowed other types of public property, such as gold mines, to be privatized, in return for tax payments to the Islamic state. The owner of the previously public property that was privatized pays zakat and, according to Shi'ite scholars, khums as well. In general the privatization and nationalization of public property is subject to debate amongst Islamic scholars. Public property thus, eventually, becomes state or private property.[36]

State property includes certain natural resources, as well as other property that can't immediately be privatized. Islamic state property can be movable, or immovable, and can be acquired through conquest or peaceful means. Unclaimed, unoccupied and heir-less properties, including uncultivated land (mawat), can be considered state property.[36]
During the life of Muhammad, one fifth of military equipment captured from the enemy in the battlefield was considered state property. During his reign, Umar (on the recommendation of Ali) considered conquered land to be state rather than private property (as was usual practice). The purported reason for this was that privatizing this property would concentrate resources in the hands of a few, and prevent it from being used for the general good. The property remained under the occupation of the cultivators, but the taxes collected on it went to the state treasury.[36]
Muhammad said "Old and fallow lands are for God and His Messenger (i.e. state property), then they are for you". Jurists draw from this the conclusion that, ultimately, private ownership takes over state property.[36]

There is consensus amongst Islamic jurists and social scientists that Islam recognizes and upholds the individual's right to private ownership. The Qur'an extensively discusses taxation, inheritance, prohibition against stealing, legality of ownership, recommendation to give charity and other topics related to private property. Islam also guarantees the protection of private property by imposing stringent punishments on thieves. Muhammad said that he who dies defending his property was like a martyr.[37]
Islamic economists classify the acquisition of private property into involuntary, contractual and non-contractual categories. Involuntary means are inheritances, bequests, and gifts. Non-contractual acquisition involves the collection and exploitation of natural resources that have not previously been claimed as private property. Contractual acquisition includes activities such as trading, buying, renting, hiring labor etc.[37]
A tradition attributed to Muhammad, with which both Sunni and Shi'a jurists agree, in cases where the right to private ownership causes harm to others, then Islam favors curtailing the right in those cases. Maliki and Hanbali jurists argue that if private ownership endangers public interest, then the state can limit the amount an individual is allowed to own. This view, however, is debated by others.[37]

Islam accepts markets as the basic coordinating mechanism of the economic system. Islamic teaching holds that the market, given perfect competition, allows consumers to obtain desired goods and producers to sell their goods at a mutually acceptable price.[38]
Three necessary conditions for an operational market are said to be upheld in Islamic primary sources:[38]

Freedom of exchange: the Qur'an calls on believers to engage in trade, and rejects the contention that trade is forbidden.[39]

Security of contract: the Qur'an calls for the fulfillment and observation of contracts.[40] The longest verse of the Qur'an deals with commercial contracts involving immediate and future payments.[41]

Islam promotes a market free from interferences such as price fixing and hoarding. Government intervention, however, is tolerated under specific circumstances.[38]
Islam prohibits price fixing by a dominating handful of buyers or sellers. During the days of Muhammad, a small group of merchants met agricultural producers outside the city and bought the entire crop, thereby gaining a monopoly over the market. The produce was later sold at a higher price within the city. Muhammad condemned this practice since it caused injury both to the producers (who in the absence of numerous customers were forced to sell goods at a lower price) and the inhabitants.[38]
The above mentioned reports are also used to justify the argument that the Islamic market is characterized by free information. Producers and consumers should not be denied information on demand and supply conditions. Producers are expected to inform consumers of the quality and quantity of goods they claim to sell. Some scholars hold that if an inexperienced buyer is swayed by the seller, the consumer may nullify the transaction upon realizing the seller's unfair treatment. The Qur'an also forbids discriminatory transactions.[38][42]
Government interference in the market is justified in exceptional circumstances, such as the protection of public interest. Under normal circumstances, governmental non-interference should be upheld. When Muhammad was asked to set the price of goods in a market he responded, "I will not set such a precedent, let the people carry on on with their activities and benefit mutually."[38]

Monetary policy emphasizes keeping inflation towards a theoretical zero rate. The currency is maintained according to a basket of goods and services that is reflective of the economy as well as the value of a basket of currencies that would be represented by the level of trade with the Islamic state. The proportion of the two are weighted to the proportion of foreign trade to domestic consumption. This parallels classical and neo-classical ideals.
Money supply expansion is indexed directly to the population rather than through banking, to avoid an unfair benefit to banking at the cost of the populace. Regulatory creep, conflict of interest and political interference is avoided by a proposed independence of banking and the statistical authority.[43]

Gradual transition is preferred over drastic change, calling for a transitional state similar to Communism's transitional state of Socialism. Impairment of banking, staggered increases in reserve ratios and a gradual approach in the general regulatory framework is considered preferable.[43]
A Keynesian fiscal policy is called for to counteract the fall in the money supply caused by the transitional policies. Timing and proportion is critical to the success of such a transition.[43]

The Quran (3: 130) clearly condemns riba usually translated as "interest": "O, you who believe! Devour not riba, doubled and redoubled, and be careful of Allah; but fear Allah that you may be successful."

Most Islamic economic institutions advise participatory arrangements between capital and labor. The latter rule reflects the Islamic norm that the borrower must not bear all the cost of a failure, as "it is God who determines that failure, and intends that it fall on all those involved."
Conventional debt arrangements are thus usually unacceptable—but conventional venture investment structures are applied even on very small scales. However, not every debt arrangement can be seen in terms of venture investment structures. For example, when a family buys a home it is not investing in a business venture—a person's shelter is not a business venture. Similarly, purchasing other commodities for personal use, such as cars, furniture, and so on, cannot realistically be considered as a venture investment in which the Islamic bank shares risks and profits for the profits of the venture.

An alternative Islamic savings-investment model can be built around venture capital; investment banks; restructured corporations; and restructured stock market.[43] This model looks at removing the interest-based banking and in replacing market inefficiencies such as subsidization of loans over profit-sharing investments due to double taxation and restrictions on investment in private equity.

Islamic banks have grown recently in the Muslim world but are a very small share of the global economy compared to the Western debt banking paradigm. Hybrid approaches, e.g. Grameen Bank which applies classical Islamic values but uses conventional lending practices, are much lauded by some proponents of modern human development theory.

Perhaps due to resource scarcity in most Islamic nations, Islamic economics emphasizes limited (and some claim also sustainable) use of natural capital, i.e. producing land. These latter revive traditions of haram and hima that were prevalent in early Muslim civilization.

In June 2005 Dow Jones Indexes, New York, and RHB Securities, Kuala Lumpur, teamed up to launch a new "Islamic Malaysia Index"—a collection of 45 stocks representing Malaysian companies that comply with a variety of Sharia-based requirements. For example, total debt, cash plus interest-bearing securities and accounts receivables must each be less than 33% of the trailing 12-month average capitalization.[citation needed] Also, "gambling" on derivatives and options, and on investing in firms that make pornography or pork are also unacceptable. Islamic bonds, or sukuk, use asset returns to pay investors to comply with the religion’s ban on interest and are currently traded privately on the over-the-counter market. In late December 2009 Bursa Malaysia announced it was considering enabling individuals to trade Shariah–compliant debt on its exchange as part of a plan to attract new investors.[45]

Economic modeling in an Islamic context looks to find alternative variables and parameters. For instance, many of the key models in modern economic theory have interest (riba) as a key element. According to one author, Tobin's q could replace Interest (I).[43]

Today many financial institutions, even in the Western world, that offer financial services and products in accordance with Islamic finance. For example, Chancellor Gordon Brown in 2003 introduced legal changes that enabled British banks and building societies to offer so-called Muslim mortgages for house purchase.
In 2004 the UK's first standalone Sharia–compliant bank was launched, the Islamic Bank of Britain. Several banks offer products and services to UK customers that adopt the Islamic financial principles; such as Mudaraba, Murabaha, Musharaka and Qard.
The Islamic finance sector was worth 300–500 billion dollars (237 and 394 billion euros) as of September 2006, compared with 200 billion dollars in 2004. Islamic retail banks and investment funds number in the hundreds and many Western financial institutions offer compliant products, including Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Lloyds TSB and UBS. In 2008, at least $500 billion in assets around the world were managed in accordance with Islamic law and the sector was growing at more than 10% per year.[46]

US US20030233324A1Declining balance co-ownership financing arrangement. This discloses an allegedly Sharia compliant financing arrangement for home purchases and refinances that does not involve the payment of interest.

Islamic economics has been attacked for its alleged "incoherence, incompleteness, impracticality, and irrelevance;"[48] driven by "cultural identity" rather than problem solving.[49] Others have dismissed it as "a hodgepodge of populist and socialist ideas," in theory and "nothing more than inefficient state control of the economy and some almost equally ineffective redistribution policies," in practice.[50]

In a political and regional context where Islamist and ulema claim to have an opinion about everything, it is striking how little they have to say about this most central of human activities, beyond repetitious pieties about how their model is neither capitalist nor socialist.[50]

Interest-bearing (Riba) and speculation-involving (Gharar) trading are clearly prohibited by canonical texts. Based on this prohibition, presumably financial structures of Islamic financial products should be interest and speculation free. Nevertheless, some new empirical studies claim that “Islamic finance products’ structure is based on the Islamic prohibitions; however, these products’ risk management is still based on revoking the underlying prohibitions”. The most prominent case is inter alia, Salam and Istisna’, which are hedging methods for Sukuk. If Sukuk’s originator or investors wish to hedge against interest rate or exchange rate risks, they use one of the former methods. These methods mimic conventional risk management practice, should involve either interest-bearing or speculation-bearing trading or even both. Parallel Salam and synthetics are recent innovations that try to avoid falling athwart the prohibitions.[citation needed]

A. Basir Bin Mohamad. "The Islamic Law of Tort: A Study of the Owner and Possessor of Animals with Special Reference to the Civil Codes of the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Sudan and Iraq" in Arab Law Quarterly V.16, N.4 2001

__________. "Vicarious Liability: A Study of the Liability of the Guardian and his Ward in the Islamic Law of Tort" Arab Law Quarterly V. 17, N.1 2002

Immanuel Naveh. "The Tort of Injury and Dissolution of Marriage at the Wife's Initiative in Egyptian Mahkamat al-Naqd Rulings" in Islamic Law and Society Volume 9, Number 1, 2002

^Ray Spier (2002), "The history of the peer-review process", Trends in Biotechnology20 (8), p. 357-358 [357].

^Said Amir Arjomand (1999), "The Law, Agency, and Policy in Medieval Islamic Society: Development of the Institutions of Learning from the Tenth to the Fifteenth Century", Comparative Studies in Society and History41, p. 263-293. Cambridge University Press.

About Me

Robert Searle was educated in Windsor at the Royal Free, the Tutorials, and East Berkshire College. He is the originator of two major "work in progress" Paradigms known as Transfinancial Economics (TFE), and Multi-Dimensional Science (MDS).The former believes that new unearned money could be electronically created without serious inflation notably for key environmental, and
socially ethical projects. Multi-Dimensional Science though presents an unique "scientific" Methodology by which claimed psychic, and spiritual "phenomena"could possibly be "proved".
Apart from the above, Searle has proposed the development of the Universal Debating Project, an interactive "encyclopedia" of virtually "all" pro, and con arguments for practically any subject in the world.He is the creator too of a tribute blog on the musician, and broadcaster David Munrow (1942-1976), and a pioneering one on Contemporary Early Music.Furthermore, he has a very large audio-visual collection of Medieval, and Renaissance Music (manually created as Searle8), and has an "unusual" musical project involving improvisation which could also open up a "new" approach to music.